Norwich Face Tough Task in Premier League Opener

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The moment we have all been waiting for finally arrives on Friday 9th August as the 2019/20 Premier League season begins.

The bookmakers believe it is going to be a two horse race for the title, much like last season and one of the teams being tipped for the top is Liverpool.

They finished second to Manchester City last season and will get the new season underway when they face Norwich City at Anfield.

It has been a quiet summer for Liverpool in terms of transfers. They have added young Dutch defender Sepp van den Berg and former West Ham United goalkeeper Adrian to their ranks and sold Danny Ings to Southampton and Simon Mignolet to Club Brugge.

Form in preseason has not been good and Liverpool have won just one of their last six preseason games. They lost the Community Shield to Manchester City on penalties having drawn the game 1-1 but suffered defeats to Napoli, Sevilla and Borussia Dortmund.

However, one glance at their home form in the Premier League last season should put Liverpool fans at ease. The Reds won seventeen and were held in two of their nineteen home league matches.  In fact, you must go back forty-one games to find the last time Liverpool lost at home in the Premier League.

Trends show Liverpool have scored 2 or more goals in each of their last seven home league matches and in four of those games they found the back of the net three or more times.

Norwich City won promotion from the Championship last season. They finished as champions having amassed 94 points from forty-six games, losing only six times which was a great record.  Defensively they were not the best but Norwich City scored plenty of goals and will be looking to continue that in the Premier League.

Daniel Farke has not spent much money to strengthen the squad. Norwich City have added experienced goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann from Schalke in Germany plus Sam Byram from West Ham United, Daniel Adshead from Rochdale, Josip Drmic from Borussia Monchengladbach and Patrick Roberts on loan from Manchester City.

Their preseason form has been mixed, with some good wins and a couple of defeats. Trends show Norwich City went unbeaten in their last seven away games in the Championship, winning six of them but this is going to be a much tougher test.

Team news and Liverpool could be without Sadio Mane who has been away following the Africa Cup of Nations. Divock Origi may start in place of the Senegal international and it will be interesting to see who starts alongside Virgil van Dijk in central defence.

Norwich City travel with doubts over the fitness of Timm Klose, Alexander Tettey, Louis Thompson and Christoph Zimmermann. Teemu Pukki may start as the lone striker as Norwich City aim to contain the hosts.

Liverpool will be happy to get their season started with a home match against newly promoted opposition. They should score a few goals in this game and a Liverpool win plus over 2.5 goals is a distinct possibility.

Home team
Away team

Probability %

1X2

Pred

Correct score

Avg. goals

Weather conditions

Coef.

Score

Live
coef.

EPL

Liverpool Norwich City 09/08/2019 21:00

73207

1

3 - 1

3.96

18°

1.14

1.14 9.50 19.00 -1 1 1

FT

4 - 1(4 - 0)

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